The Freight Transport Association has welcomed the Department for Transport’s consultation response on changes to the operator licensing regulations, which aim to avoid imposing unnecessary burdens on industry.

Following consultation with FTA, most operators in GB will not notice a difference to their O-licence obligations. However, ’hire and reward’ operators of certain small vehicle and trailer combinations will notice the changes, along with operators using non-employed consultant transport managers and individuals in the process of obtaining transport manager CPCs or alternative qualifications or those with grandfather rights.

James Firth, FTA’s Head of Road Freight and Enforcement Policy, said:

”Broadly speaking these changes export GB best practice to the rest of Europe, which is good news for most of our operators who won’t see any real changes and which will hopefully up the standards in the rest of Europe. The DfT deserves credit for listening to industry and being pragmatic enough to minimise the potential burden of wholesale changes to our industry.

”FTA will work closely with the Office of the Traffic Commissioners to ensure the practicalities of the changes are as straightforward as possible.”

Notes for editors

1. Harmonised licensing rules for international operators and transport managers will be introduced on 4 December 2011. Key changes are the introduction of a pan-European database, merging of National and International Transport Manager CPCs, and restrictions on part-time transport managers. These access to the occupation regulations limit external transport managers from being named on more than four undertakings’ licences with a combined total maximum fleet of 50 vehicles.

2. FTA lobbied for and secured the following outcomes during the consultation on operator licensing changes:

• Recognition of the varied nature of compliant arrangements of larger organisations
• Acceptance of the principle of self-declaration by organisations and their transport managers on key conditions
• The need to establish an appeals process for transport managers that is independent from operators